Jessica Mills, touring punk musician and columnist for MAXIMUMROCKNROLL, has written a book based on her experiences as a punk parent.

Amid stories of bringing kids (and grandparents) to women’s rights demonstrations, taking baby on tour with her band, and organizing cooperative childcare, Jessica gives detailed nuts-and-bolts information about weaning, cloth vs. disposable diapers, the psychological effects of co-sleeping, and even how to get free infant gear. This book provides a clever, hip, and entertaining mix of advice, anecdotes, political analysis, and factual sidebars that will help parents as they navigate the first years of their child’s life.

Some of her advice wouldn’t work for everyone–her goals included raising her child without “gender-coding,” punishment, or authoritarianism, and at least two of those goals made me roll my eyes–but her experiences as an alternative-lifestyle parent might be comforting to punk or goth parents who meet with disapproval of our lifestyle choices.

(The trick is to embrace the opprobrium. I used to love dressing Shadowboy in a onesie that said “Spawn of Freaks” and taking him to the grocery store. Little old ladies would come up to coo at him, read his shirt, give me a horrified look, and take off like a shot. Good times.)